Can
french fries be objects of art? That's debatable, but they sure can be
objects of lawsuits!

Here's what happened when a gallery lost a pair of french fries that
"were the basis of an artwork":

The artwork comprised a cross made of two golden chips, alongside
two normal fries, deep-fried and not gold-leafed.

The catalogue for the original 1990 exhibition “Pommes d’Or,”
described the work of artist Stefan Bohnenberger as “the metamorphosis
of a profane everyday object into a sacred artwork.”

But the gallery’s reverence for the chips declined in the
intervening decades, because when Bohnenberger asked for the two normal
fries back last year, the Munich gallery Mosel and Tschechow could no
longer find them. An incensed Bohnenberger promptly demanded damages,
which the gallery refused to pay.

According to a report in news magazine Der Spiegel the court ruled
that the gallery must now hand Bohnenberger €2,000 plus five percent
interest from May 2010. On top of that, the gallery is being forced
to pay 90 percent of the court fees.

The judge found that the gallery had neglected its duty to keep
the chips safe.

What were they thinking? This could've been solved for $0.99 with a quick
trip to the local McDonald's: Link
- via Arbroath

Just because you don't "get" the artwork and think its silly. What isn't silly is making fun of a well founded lawsuit against a museum losing a piece of someone's property. Property which is their livelihood, despite it being a pair of French fries and despite it not making sense to everyone.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Imagine a funeral home losing the ashes of your loved one. It's just some dust and brittle bones ground in a ball mill and poured into a baggie. Seems pretty ridiculous to be emotionally attached to such a thing but humans are weird. In such a case you would be entitled to some sort of compensation. Maybe not a bazillion dollars but at least the cost of cremation. At least you did get a funny family story of Nana's burial by way of rubbish skip.